What is Amazon PPC? Basics Explained

Understand all fundamentals and basics about Amazon PPC and optimise your ROAS and ACOS

Jun 10, 2023

Lets dive deeper to understand all about Amazon PPC

What is Amazon PPC? The main principles of "Pay per Click" explained

Welcome to the Amazon PPC Basics ! In this article, we will delve into the fundamental concepts of Amazon PPC, exploring what it is, how it works, and why it is crucial for your success as a seller on Amazon.

1. The Purpose of PPC: Amazon PPC (Pay per Click) is a powerful tool used by sellers to boost their product visibility and increase sales. With intense competition on the platform, appearing on the first page of search results is essential. PPC enables sellers to achieve this by placing sponsored ads, which are only displayed when a user searches for relevant keywords.
2. How PPC Works: When a user enters a search term, the search results page displays both organic listings and sponsored ads. Sponsored ads are identified by a "sponsored" sign. Unlike traditional advertising, sellers only pay when a shopper clicks on their ad. This pay-per-click model allows sellers to control their budget and set bids for each click.
3. Auction-based Bidding System: PPC operates on an auction-based bidding system. Sellers place bids, indicating the maximum amount they are willing to pay for a click. The highest bidder secures the top ad spot. However, sellers don't have to pay their full bid amount. They only need to pay enough to outbid the second-highest bidder. This system offers flexibility and cost control.
4.Getting Started with Amazon PPC: To begin using PPC, sellers can access the campaign manager through Seller Central or the Amazon advertising portal for vendors. Creating a campaign is a straightforward process, requiring professional seller status, a product with a Buy Box, and adherence to Amazon's advertising policies.
5. Benefits of Amazon PPC: a. Increased Product Visibility: PPC allows sellers to bypass intense competition and gain exposure on the first page of search results. b. Targeted Advertising: By choosing relevant keywords, sellers can reach their intended audience, increasing the chances of conversion. c. Budget Control: Sellers have complete control over their ad spend, setting their maximum bid and daily budget. d. Valuable Insights: PPC campaigns provide valuable data on click-through rates and search terms, enabling sellers to optimize their listings and marketing strategies.

By leveraging PPC, sellers can elevate their product visibility, attract relevant shoppers, and increase sales. With the ability to control their budget and access valuable campaign data, sellers have the tools necessary to optimize their advertising efforts and achieve success on Amazon.

2.Why do you need PPC?

In this article, we'll explore why Amazon PPC (Pay per Click) is a crucial tool for sellers looking to succeed on the platform. While we've touched upon some reasons already, there is much more to uncover. Let's delve into the six main advantages of utilizing Amazon PPC to enhance your product visibility, drive sales, and boost your brand.

1. Discovering New Keywords: Amazon PPC allows you to leverage its algorithm to find new, relevant keywords for your products. These keywords can be incorporated into your product listings, titles, bullet points, and used as targets for your PPC campaigns. By doing so, you expand your product's visibility, reach a broader audience, and generate more traffic.
2. Prioritizing Keywords: Unlike organic traffic, Amazon PPC provides valuable insights into which specific keywords are generating clicks and orders. This data helps you understand which keywords are performing well for your product. By prioritizing these keywords, you can optimize your product's title and content to increase its relevance, attracting more potential customers.
3. Boosting Organic Rankings: Amazon's search algorithm rewards products that generate sales for specific keywords. By using PPC to drive sales, you improve your product's chances of ranking higher in organic search results. Appearing on the first page of search results is a coveted position that significantly increases your product's visibility and sales potential.
4. Defending Shelf Space: Even if your product ranks well organically, utilizing PPC is essential to protect your position from competitors. Others will attempt to claim your spot by running PPC campaigns targeting the same keywords. By maintaining an active PPC strategy, you strengthen your presence, show up twice in search results (paid and organic), and double your chances of getting clicked on.
5.Improving Brand Awareness: For sellers focused on long-term brand growth, PPC offers an effective way to enhance brand awareness and customer loyalty. Sponsored brand ads prominently display your products and brand at the top of search results, helping your name stick in customers' minds. Increased brand recognition leads to improved customer retention and future conversions.
6.Reducing Long-Term Storage Costs: Opting to rely solely on organic traffic may lead to slower sales, resulting in higher long-term storage costs. These costs can accumulate over time and negatively impact your profitability. By investing in PPC, you generate more sales and reduce the risk of incurring excessive storage costs, making it a cost-effective choice.

By leveraging the power of PPC, you can uncover new keywords, optimize organic rankings, defend your position, improve brand awareness, and reduce storage costs. Implementing an effective PPC strategy leads to increased traffic, sales, and reviews, contributing to your overall success on Amazon. Embrace the power of Amazon PPC and unlock its potential for your business.

3.Sponsored Products vs Brands vs Display- When & Why to use which PPC ?

We'll explore the different ad types available, specifically Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display ads. Understanding these ad types and their output formats is crucial for optimizing your campaigns and maximizing their effectiveness.

Sponsored Products: Sponsored Products are the primary ad type that most advertisers begin with on Amazon. These ads feature individual products that seamlessly blend in with organic search results. They appear in search results, listing pages, and even thank you pages. The advantage of Sponsored Products lies in their ability to increase product visibility and drive sales. However, it is important to note that Sponsored Products work best with retail-ready products, which have optimized content, including titles, bullet points, descriptions, and high-quality images. Additionally, having positive reviews adds to the credibility and social proof of your products.

Sponsored Brands: Sponsored Brands offer a more comprehensive advertising format. They include a logo, headline, and a combination of three products. Sponsored Brands ads appear prominently at the top of search results, making them ideal for brand awareness campaigns. While they can drive sales, their main advantage lies in promoting your brand and creating long-term brand recognition. Sponsored Brands allow you to convey your brand's unique message and differentiate yourself from competitors. Experimenting with different components of the ad, such as headlines, can help optimize performance and uncover the most effective messaging for your brand.

Sponsored Display: Sponsored Display is the newest member of Amazon's advertising options. These ads feature individual products and provide the option to include a headline. Sponsored Display ads offer unique targeting capabilities, including product targeting, where your ads can appear on relevant product listing pages. Moreover, retargeting audiences allow you to target people who have viewed your advertised product but haven't made a purchase, or those who have viewed similar products. Sponsored Display ads are particularly beneficial for cross-selling your own products, stealing traffic from competitors, and retargeting customers who have already purchased from you. These ads can also be displayed on various websites across the web, expanding your reach beyond the Amazon platform.

Conclusion: Understanding the differences between Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display ads is crucial for creating effective Amazon PPC campaigns. Sponsored Products are ideal for increasing sales and product visibility, while Sponsored Brands focus on brand awareness and showcasing your brand's unique value proposition. Sponsored Display ads provide advanced targeting options, including product targeting and retargeting, allowing for cross-selling and customer retention strategies. Remember that while this blog post primarily focuses on Sponsored Products, many concepts, such as keyword targeting, campaign goals, and bid optimization, apply to all ad types.

4.Automatic vs Manual Campaigns - Benefits & Negatives of both Ad Control Types

When it comes to creating and managing Amazon PPC campaigns, there are two main options to consider: automatic campaigns and manual campaigns. In this blog post, we will delve into the differences between these two formats and explore their advantages. Whether you're a large company with numerous products or an individual seller, understanding the benefits of each approach can help you make informed decisions for your advertising strategy on Amazon.

Automatic Campaigns: Letting Amazon Take the Wheel Automatic campaigns are aptly named because they involve automated targeting of search results and product listing pages. With automatic campaigns, Amazon takes charge, eliminating the need for you to manually select where your sponsored products should appear. This can be advantageous if you're unsure about specific keyword combinations or product placements, as Amazon leverages existing data to estimate the best performance for your sponsored products.

One major advantage of automatic campaigns is their ability to help you discover new search terms. As the campaign runs, Amazon compiles a comprehensive list of search terms in their Seller Central search term reports. These search terms can be invaluable for future PPC efforts, allowing you to refine your targeting and improve your campaign's effectiveness.

However, automatic campaigns do have a downside. Since there is no individual bid control, bidding on search terms becomes more costly. Every search term is bid on with the same amount, regardless of its relevance to your product. This can result in your ad appearing for unrelated search queries, wasting your advertising budget.

Manual Campaigns: Taking Control of Your Advertising Manual campaigns offer sellers more control and flexibility in their Amazon PPC campaigns. With manual campaigns, you have the freedom to choose where your sponsored products appear, whether it's through keywords or product listing pages. Since the end of 2018, manual campaigns also allow targeting of product listing pages, expanding your advertising options.

While manual campaigns may not provide the same level of keyword discovery as automatic campaigns, they offer the advantage of helping you find similar keywords. By selecting the match type for your targeted keywords, you can broaden or narrow down the matching criteria to align with customer search queries. This allows you to explore related search terms that can be valuable for expanding your campaign's reach.

The most significant advantage of manual campaigns is the individual bid control for each keyword. This allows you to analyze the performance of each keyword and adjust bids accordingly. By increasing or decreasing bids based on conversion rates and profitability, you can optimize your campaign and maximize your return on investment.

Conclusion: Embrace Both Approaches In summary, both automatic and manual campaigns have their merits in Amazon PPC advertising. Automatic campaigns are ideal for keyword research and large companies with limited time to manage individual campaigns. On the other hand, manual campaigns offer more control, individual bid management, and the ability to discover similar keywords.

To create a robust and efficient advertising strategy, it is recommended to utilize both types of campaigns. By combining the strengths of automatic and manual campaigns, you can gather valuable data, refine your targeting, and maximize the effectiveness of your Amazon PPC campaigns.

5. Keywords vs Search Terms - Why do we need these different terms?

As you dive into the world of Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising, you'll come across two important terms: search terms and keywords. In this brief blog post, we'll provide a clear distinction between these terms and explain why they matter in your Amazon PPC campaigns.

Search Terms: Customer Intent Revealed Search terms are the words or combinations of words that customers enter into the Amazon search bar. When you review search term reports, you gain insights into what people were specifically searching for. In automatic campaigns, although you cannot target specific keywords, the ads are automatically tested for relevant search terms. This allows you to understand the actual customer intent behind their search queries.

Keywords: Targeted Advertising Approach Keywords, on the other hand, are the specific words or word combinations that you consciously target in your manual ad campaigns. They may or may not be the exact search terms entered by customers. The significant advantage of keywords is that you can assign individual bids for each targeted keyword. This level of control enables you to optimize your bidding strategy based on the performance and profitability of each keyword.

The Need for Differentiation: Match Types Now, you might wonder why there is a distinction between search terms and keywords. The answer lies in the concept of match types. Keywords can have different match types: broad, phrase, and exact. These match types determine how broadly you want to target similar search terms.

· Broad match: With broad match, your ads may appear for a wider range of search terms that are related to your targeted keywords. This approach allows for greater reach but might result in less precise targeting.
· Phrase match: Phrase match narrows down the scope, as your ads are triggered when the search terms contain the targeted keywords in the specified order. This match type offers a balance between reach and specificity.
· Exact match: Exact match provides the most precise targeting. Your ads are displayed only when the search terms precisely match your targeted keywords. This match type ensures highly relevant ad placements but may limit reach.

Conclusion: Understanding the Difference for Effective Campaigns In Amazon PPC, comprehending the distinction between search terms and keywords is crucial for building effective advertising campaigns. Search terms reveal customer intent, while keywords allow you to actively target specific words or combinations.

Additionally, match types further refine your targeting strategy, offering a spectrum of reach and precision. By utilizing broad, phrase, and exact match types strategically, you can optimize your ad campaigns based on your advertising goals and the performance of each match type.

6.Exact, Phrase & Broad - Match Types and their different use cases explained

As you dive into the world of Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising, you'll come across two important terms: search terms and keywords. In this brief blog post, we'll provide a clear distinction between these terms and explain why they matter in your Amazon PPC campaigns.

· Broad match: With broad match, your ads may appear for a wider range of search terms that are related to your targeted keywords. This approach allows for greater reach but might result in less precise targeting.
· Phrase match: Phrase match narrows down the scope, as your ads are triggered when the search terms contain the targeted keywords in the specified order. This match type offers a balance between reach and specificity.
· Exact match: Exact match provides the most precise targeting. Your ads are displayed only when the search terms precisely match your targeted keywords. This match type ensures highly relevant ad placements but may limit reach.

7.Product Targeting - Stealing your competition's traffic

In the realm of Amazon PPC advertising, there's a powerful yet underused targeting option called Product Targeting. Many sellers are still unfamiliar with this feature, unaware of the potential it holds. In this concise blog post, we'll shed light on Product Targeting, its benefits, and how you can leverage it to gain an edge over the competition.

Stealing Your Competition's Traffic: Product Targeting revolves around capturing your competitors' traffic. While others struggle to rank organically or spend heavily on PPC campaigns, Product Targeting remains a hidden gem. It offers you the opportunity to showcase your product on your own or other product listing pages, attracting potential customers who are already engaged with similar products.

How Product Targeting Works: To initiate Product Targeting, you simply need to identify the ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) of the product listing page you want to target. ASINs can be found in the URL or product description. Within Seller Central's campaign manager, you have two options:

1. Individual Product Targeting: Enter specific ASINs into your product targeting list. This approach enables precise targeting of selected listing pages.
2. Category-Based Product Targeting: If you don't have specific ASINs in mind, you can opt to target product listing pages in a particular category. You can further refine your targeting by considering additional criteria such as brand, price range, ratings, and shipping options. This provides flexibility and control over where your sponsored products appear.

The Advantages of Product Targeting: Product Targeting presents several advantages that can bolster your advertising efforts:

1.Gain an Edge over Competitors: By strategically targeting weaker listing pages with your sponsored products, you can divert traffic and sales from less competitive products. This allows you to tap into existing demand and maximize your exposure.
2. Cross-Sell Opportunities: Utilize product targeting to promote complementary items alongside your main product. For example, if you sell a garden football, you can showcase a sponsored product for a goal post, increasing the chances of cross-selling and generating additional sales.
3.Cost-Effectiveness: Product Targeting can often be more cost-effective compared to keyword targeting. As it remains underutilized, competition for ad placements on listing pages might be less intense, potentially leading to lower advertising costs.

Harness the Power of Listing Pages: Listing pages play a significant role in driving traffic on Amazon, accounting for approximately 50% of all site visits. By placing your sponsored products on relevant listing pages, you can tap into this traffic and increase your brand visibility.

Conclusion: Expanding Your Advertising Strategy Product Targeting is a valuable tool in your Amazon PPC arsenal. It allows you to target specific listing pages and steal traffic from competitors while providing opportunities for cross-selling and cost-effective advertising. Embrace the power of Product Targeting and unlock its potential to enhance your Amazon PPC campaigns.

8.Tailored Automatic Targeting - New bidding control for your Auto Campaigns

When it comes to Amazon PPC campaigns, you have the option to manually target specific search terms or product listing pages. However, it's crucial to understand the potential of automatic targeting. In this blog post, we'll delve deeper into automatic targeting, highlighting its enhanced flexibility and various match types.

Automatic Targeting Explained: Automatic targeting is one of the two main options in Amazon PPC, alongside manual targeting. Since the end of 2018, automatic targeting has evolved to offer more control and customization. Previously, you had only one bid for all relevant search terms, but now you have the ability to set four different bids.

Different Match Types and Their Significance: Let's examine how Amazon defines the four match types in automatic targeting:

1. Close Match: This match type displays your sponsored product for search terms closely related to your product. It is the most effective match type, as it ensures your product is shown to highly relevant search queries.
2. Loose Match: Equivalent to broad match in manual targeting, this match type shows your sponsored product to users who search for loosely related terms. Bidding lower for this match type is recommended, as not all search terms will lead to conversions. However, certain products with versatile usage may benefit from higher bids for loose match targeting.
3. Substitute Match: With substitute match, your sponsored product appears on detail pages of products similar to yours. These products are typically your competitors. Identifying and targeting these competitor products can help you steal traffic and gain an edge in your niche.
4. Complementary Products: This match type showcases your sponsored product on detail pages of products that complement your offering. For example, if someone is browsing for a dog house, they might see a sponsored product for a dog mat. This match type enables you to cross-promote your product alongside related items.

Optimizing Automatic Targeting: In Seller Central, you can review the performance of your automatic targeting campaign by examining the search terms and ASINs that led to clicks. Utilize this data to identify new search terms and relevant ASINs for manual targeting campaigns. By moving high-performing search terms and ASINs to your manual targeting ad groups, you can refine your advertising strategy and maximize results.

Conclusion: Leveraging Automatic Targeting for Success Automatic targeting in Amazon PPC campaigns provides a range of options to effectively showcase your sponsored product to potential customers. With close match, loose match, substitute match, and complementary products, you can fine-tune your bids and expand your reach. Regularly analyze the performance of your campaigns and adjust bids accordingly.

9.Negative Targets - Avoiding Bad Traffic

In Amazon PPC campaigns, it's essential to have control over which search terms trigger your sponsored product. Negative targets allow you to block specific search terms that are underperforming. This blog post will explore the different types of negative targets available and how they can enhance the effectiveness of your automatic targeting and broad/phrase match campaigns.

Types of Negative Targets: Amazon provides three types of negative targets to optimize your campaigns:

1. Negative Exact: Similar to exact keyword targeting, negative exact blocks your sponsored product from appearing for a specific search term. For example, if your dog house is being shown for irrelevant search terms like "hamster house," you can add "hamster" as a negative exact to exclude that term and improve campaign performance.
2. Negative Phrase: Negative phrase allows you to exclude your product from appearing for any search term that includes specific words. Suppose you notice numerous search terms related to "hamster" triggering your doghouse ad. In that case, you can add "hamster" as a negative phrase to prevent your sponsored product from showing for any search term that includes that word. This proactive approach helps avoid unnecessary costs and ensures better targeting.
3.Negative ASINs: Negative ASINs block your sponsored ads from appearing on the listing pages of specific ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers). This feature is particularly useful in manual category targeting, where you can choose to target products priced below a certain threshold. If a specific ASIN is not performing well, you can add it to your negative target list. However, note that negative ASINs currently do not apply to automatic targeting campaigns.

Effective Utilization of Negative Targets: When using negative targets, it's crucial to strike a balance between cost-saving and potential traffic loss. Instead of immediately adding search terms to negative targets, consider reducing bids for underperforming terms first. Lower bids allow you to test the profitability of search terms that may still yield results with minimal investment.

On the other hand, it's important to proactively exclude highly irrelevant search terms to maintain a good campaign trust score. Targeting too many irrelevant keywords can decrease your overall click-through rate (CTR) and impact your impressions. By strategically using negative targets for highly irrelevant search terms, you can maintain campaign relevancy and improve overall performance.

Conclusion: Utilizing Negative Targets for Optimization Negative targets are a valuable tool in Amazon PPC campaigns, enabling you to exclude unprofitable or irrelevant search terms and ASINs. By utilizing negative exact, negative phrase, and negative ASINs, you can refine your targeting, improve conversion rates, and save costs. However, it's important to strike a balance and use negative targets sparingly to avoid losing potential future traffic.

10.Budgets - the underestimated option that can make all the difference

As we explore Amazon PPC options, it's crucial to discuss budgets. While budgets may not directly impact campaign performance, they play a vital role in ensuring that your spending remains within comfortable limits. In this blog post, we'll delve into the two key budget options available to Amazon sellers and how they provide a safety net for your advertising efforts.

Daily Campaign Budget: The daily campaign budget is the first decision you make when creating a campaign. It determines the amount you are willing to spend per day on a single campaign. It is recommended to allocate at least $10 to gather significant data for optimization purposes. Remember, more data leads to better analysis and campaign performance. The daily campaign budget acts as a safety net, preventing uncontrolled spending, particularly in the early stages when you're testing the waters.

Daily Budget Cap: In addition to the daily campaign budget, you have the option to set a daily budget cap across all your campaigns within a marketplace. This cap acts as an extra safety measure, ensuring you stay within your overall budget. You can find this option in the campaign manager's advertising settings. Big companies often use this feature to adhere to fixed marketing budgets, and it is particularly useful during events like Prime Day when traffic may be unpredictable.

Understanding Budget Dynamics: It's essential to comprehend how budgets are utilized on Amazon. The daily campaign budget is an average value. Amazon optimizes your budget by using any unused budget from previous days and reallocating it to subsequent days. For instance, if your budget is $10 and you only spend $7 on day 1, Amazon may use $13 on day 2 to maximize your budget utilization. This dynamic budget allocation ensures efficient spending over time.

Determining the Ideal Budget: While setting the minimum campaign budget can be subjective, a practical approach is to start with what you can comfortably afford. Over time, as you run multiple campaigns for various products, you can evaluate their performance and adjust budgets accordingly. Increase budgets for campaigns that deliver favorable results and consider reducing budgets for those that underperform. Avoid overthinking the process and begin with a $10 budget as a reasonable starting point.

Conclusion: Harness the Power of Budget Management Budgets play a crucial role in maintaining control over your Amazon PPC campaigns. They act as safety nets, ensuring your spending remains within predefined limits. By setting daily campaign budgets and utilizing the optional daily budget cap, you can effectively manage your advertising expenses. Remember, as you gather more data and analyze campaign performance, adjust budgets accordingly to optimize your advertising efforts.

11.Campaigns & Ad Groups - the fundamental difference you need to know

As an Amazon seller, it's crucial to understand the differences between campaigns and ad groups in order to optimize your advertising efforts effectively. In this blog post, we will explore these differences, their importance in campaign structure, and the valuable settings available at the campaign level.

Campaigns vs. Ad Groups: Campaigns and ad groups are essential components of Amazon PPC advertising. While you can create up to 10,000 campaigns for a marketplace, the limit of 20,000 ad groups per campaign is rarely a concern. However, having too many campaigns may be challenging if you have a vast number of products to advertise.

The Importance of Campaign Structure: The structure of your campaigns plays a significant role in organizing your advertising efforts. One critical difference between campaigns and ad groups lies in where you allocate valuable settings like the budget. Having one ad group per campaign allows you to control the budget effectively, as it is set at the campaign level. In contrast, multiple ad groups within a single campaign would mean increasing the budget for all keywords and groups, including those that may not be performing well. Therefore, it is generally recommended to have one ad group per campaign, with the exception being when you reach the maximum number of campaigns allowed.

Valuable Settings at the Campaign Level: Campaign-level settings offer valuable control over your advertising strategy. In addition to the budget, which is set at the campaign level, there are two other important settings: dynamic bidding and adjust placement bids.

1.Dynamic Bidding: Amazon's dynamic bidding allows you to optimize your bids based on real-time customer behavior. It enables Amazon to decrease bids by up to 100 percent for customers less likely to make a purchase and increase bids by up to 100 percent for those more likely to convert. While the effectiveness of this feature may vary depending on the niche, it can be a powerful tool in the long run as Amazon improves its prediction algorithms. However, for new campaigns or products, it's advisable to start with fixed bids to ensure visibility and generate traffic.
2. Adjust Placement Bids: This setting allows you to increase bids for your sponsored products to appear at the top of search results. Being featured at the top generally leads to better click-through rates and higher sales. Increasing bids by a certain percentage, such as 15-30 percent, for top-of-search placements is a common practice. Monitoring the performance of different placements through the placement report is crucial to fine-tune your bidding strategy.

Future Settings and Campaign Level: It's likely that future settings introduced by Amazon, such as bid adjustments based on demographic data, will also be available at the campaign level. Therefore, understanding and leveraging campaign-level settings is essential for maximizing the performance of your Amazon PPC campaigns.

Conclusion: Differentiating between campaigns and ad groups is crucial for structuring your advertising campaigns effectively on Amazon. By having one ad group per campaign, you gain control over valuable settings like the budget, dynamic bidding, and adjust placement bids. These campaign-level settings allow you to optimize your advertising strategy, increase visibility, and maximize your return on investment. Understanding these differences sets the foundation for setting goals and achieving success in your Amazon PPC campaigns.

12.Maximizing Total Ads + Organic Profit - the impossible goal?

In the world of advertising, maximizing profit for a single product is not always the sole objective. For larger advertisers, focusing on brand awareness becomes paramount. This blog post explores the significance of brand awareness, its impact on product portfolios, and its long-term benefits for advertisers.

Brand Awareness for the Big Players: Brand awareness holds special importance for advertisers with a diverse range of products within the same brand or niche. These are the big players who aim to establish their name, create loyalty, and generate brand recognition. By investing in brand awareness, these advertisers enhance the conversion rates for all their products. When customers encounter a new product from a familiar brand in search results, it instills trust and familiarity, resulting in increased sales.

Benefits for Product Portfolios: Large advertisers with multiple products reap substantial benefits from brand awareness. By making their brand visible in search results, they attract more targeted traffic. When customers recognize and trust the brand based on previous positive experiences, they are more likely to choose their products over others. Brand awareness not only boosts sales for individual products but also increases the conversion rates across the advertiser's entire product portfolio. This becomes especially valuable when products within the portfolio share similarities in terms of features and pricing.

Sponsored Brands: A Powerful Tool: One effective way to achieve brand awareness is through sponsored brands, an advertising format that showcases three products at the top of search results. This format allows advertisers to gain impressions, expose their brand to potential customers, and establish brand recognition. Sponsored brands significantly contribute to achieving the goal of brand awareness.

The Final Big Goal: Brand awareness stands as a crucial goal for advertisers with a significant number of products within their brand. It enables them to drive long-term success by attracting targeted traffic, increasing conversion rates, and fostering brand loyalty. The benefits extend beyond a single product, creating a foundation for future profitability and expansion.

Conclusion: While maximizing profit for a single product is essential, larger advertisers recognize the importance of brand awareness for long-term success. By investing in brand awareness, they gain visibility, trust, and loyalty from customers. Brand awareness positively impacts conversion rates across the entire product portfolio, enhancing the overall performance and profitability of the brand. Sponsored brands serve as a powerful tool to achieve brand awareness and reach the target audience effectively. As advertisers set their goals, brand awareness should be a top priority for those seeking sustained growth and market dominance

13. Maximizing Sales - getting them addicted ;)

When it comes to product lifecycle, there are several realistic targets that sellers aim to achieve. One of the primary goals is to maximize sales, disregarding immediate profitability. we will delve into the importance of maximizing sales, especially for new products, and its impact on reviews, organic rankings, and long-term profitability.

Maximizing Sales: The Initial Focus: For sellers, the initial focus is to secure as many sales as possible, even if it means sacrificing immediate profitability. This strategy is commonly employed for new or restocked products. By setting high bids and gaining maximum impressions, sellers aim to drive sales volume. The primary objective here is to accumulate a substantial number of reviews. Reviews play a pivotal role in boosting product conversion rates and instilling trust among potential customers.

Reviews and Organic Rankings: Having a significant number of reviews establishes a strong foundation for future sales. Reviews serve as social proof, influencing customers' purchasing decisions. Additionally, sales contribute to improving organic rankings. To rank organically for relevant keywords and increase visibility without relying on ads, sellers need to generate sales. If a product is relatively new and lacks organic visibility, ads become instrumental in driving sales, thereby boosting organic rankings.

The Aggressively pursuing sales: The strategy of aggressively pursuing sales with minimal concern for profitability is akin to a brands distributing products to hook customers. The goal is to create a customer base and establish addiction. Similarly, sellers focus on generating a large customer base, achieving high sales volume, and boosting organic rankings. This early push sets the stage for future profitability and efficiency in advertising.

Looking Ahead: Efficiency in Advertising: Once a sufficient number of sales and reviews are obtained, sellers can shift their focus towards maximizing profitability and efficiency in advertising. This involves refining bidding strategies, optimizing campaigns, and streamlining ad spend. By leveraging the initial sales surge and organic rankings, sellers can now concentrate on achieving sustainable profitability while maintaining brand visibility and reputation.

Conclusion: Maximizing sales is a crucial target for sellers, particularly during the early stages of a product's lifecycle. While prioritizing sales volume over immediate profitability, sellers aim to accumulate reviews and improve organic rankings. This initial aggressive push lays the foundation for future success and allows sellers to transition towards more efficient advertising strategies. By focusing on sales, reviews, and organic rankings, sellers pave the way for sustained profitability and long-term growth.

14.Maximize Ads Efficiency - playing it safely

After establishing a new product, obtaining initial reviews, and improving organic rankings, Amazon advertisers can shift their focus towards maximizing ads efficiency. This blog post explores the widely pursued goal of ads efficiency and how it enables advertisers to reduce risk, increase profitability, and optimize their advertising campaigns.

Ads Efficiency: Playing it Safe: Analogous to a cautious drug dealer targeting selective, affluent customers, focusing on ads efficiency involves minimizing risk and targeting a niche audience. Advertisers lower their bids to reduce costs, resulting in decreased traffic and impressions. However, the goal is to prioritize profitability over high sales volume. By strategically selecting customers and bidding conservatively, advertisers ensure they cater to a specific audience and generate high-profit returns.

Reducing Risk and Increasing Profitability: Lowering bids may lead to a decrease in overall impressions as advertisers lose in the ad auction to competitors. However, this approach significantly reduces the risk of financial losses from advertising campaigns. Advertisers still receive impressions, albeit on lower-ranking pages, potentially reaching interested customers who actively explore beyond the first page. This method allows advertisers to play it safe, minimizing losses while maximizing profitability.

The Trade-Off: Striking the Right Balance: While focusing on ads efficiency and reducing bids ensures high-profit returns, there is a trade-off to consider. Bidding too conservatively may limit impressions and overall sales potential. By bidding higher and strategically allocating ad spend, advertisers can capture a larger share of the market, increase sales volume, and potentially maximize total profits. Finding the right balance between efficiency and sales volume is crucial for long-term success.

Next Goal: Increasing Total Profit: Having established ads efficiency as a goal, the next objective is to explore strategies for increasing total profit. Advertisers can evaluate the impact of bidding higher, analyzing the correlation between increased bids, sales volume, and profitability. By fine-tuning bidding strategies and monitoring performance metrics, advertisers can optimize their campaigns to achieve a higher total profit.

Conclusion: Ads efficiency is a widely pursued goal for Amazon advertisers, enabling them to reduce risk, focus on profitable customer segments, and optimize their advertising campaigns. By lowering bids and targeting a specific audience, advertisers prioritize profitability while minimizing losses. However, striking the right balance between efficiency and sales volume is essential for long-term success.

15. Maximize Total Ads Profit - the true and more or less realistic goal

Amazon advertisers often prioritize two main goals in their campaigns: maximizing sales and achieving ad efficiency. While both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, the ultimate objective is to find the sweet spot where maximum profit can be generated. In this blog post, we will explore the importance of maximizing total ads profit and the considerations involved in achieving this goal.

The Sweet Spot: Balancing Sales and Efficiency: Maximizing total ads profit involves striking a balance between generating as many sales as possible and maintaining ad efficiency. Bidding too low may result in low sales volume, even if the sales generated are highly profitable. Conversely, bidding too high can lead to increased sales but at the cost of profitability. The key is to find the optimal bid that ensures a significant number of sales while maintaining ad efficiency.

Adaptability: Adjusting Strategies Over Time: The sweet spot for total ads profit is not a fixed point and may evolve over time. Factors such as competitor activity and seasonal variations can impact campaign performance. Advertisers must continuously monitor and adapt their strategies to stay within the profitable range. Third-party software can provide valuable insights into total ads profit, allowing advertisers to assess the impact of bid adjustments on overall profitability, not just sales volume.

Complexity and Achievability: Maximizing total ads profit is a more complex goal compared to the previous goals discussed. While it doesn't involve organic rankings and revenue, it requires careful measurement and analysis of campaign performance. Third-party software can assist in tracking total ads profit on a regular basis, offering a clearer understanding of profitability trends. Although challenging, this goal is realistic and achievable with the right tools and monitoring.

The Last Goal: A Preview: While maximizing total ads profit is an essential objective for most established products, there is one more goal that big advertisers also focus on. In the next blog post, we will explore this final goal and its significance in the context of Amazon advertising campaigns. Stay tuned for valuable insights on achieving comprehensive campaign success.

Conclusion: Maximizing total ads profit is a crucial goal for Amazon advertisers, aiming to find the optimal balance between sales volume and ad efficiency. By identifying the sweet spot, advertisers can generate significant sales while maintaining profitability. Adapting strategies over time and utilizing third-party software helps monitor and optimize total ads profit. Although more complex than other goals, it remains achievable with diligent measurement and analysis

16.Increase Brand Awareness - when & why you want to spend money just to be known

In the world of Amazon advertising, big advertisers have a distinct goal: maximizing their brand's profit across multiple products. While individual product success is important, these advertisers prioritize brand awareness and loyalty to establish long-term profitability. This blog post explores the significance of brand awareness for advertisers with a diverse product portfolio and highlights its positive impact on conversion rates and overall success.

Driving Conversion Rates with Brand Awareness: For advertisers with a range of products in the same niche and brand, investing in brand awareness becomes crucial. By promoting their brand and establishing recognition among potential customers, advertisers can boost conversion rates for all products within their portfolio. When customers see a familiar brand in search results for a new product, it instills trust and familiarity. This familiarity translates into a higher likelihood of choosing their products over competitors with similar offerings. Brand awareness not only increases trust but also enhances the overall shopping experience, leading to more sales.

Gaining Competitive Advantage: Investing in brand awareness provides a competitive edge in the Amazon marketplace. When customers actively search for a specific brand, it generates more traffic and directs potential buyers to the advertiser's products. Additionally, being featured in the sponsored brands ad format, with three products showcased at the top of search results, amplifies brand visibility and creates a lasting impression. This format serves as an effective strategy to gain impressions, increase brand exposure, and foster brand loyalty among customers.

Long-Term Benefits and Increased Conversion Rates: Brand awareness is a critical objective for companies with multiple products within a brand. By focusing on building brand recognition, advertisers lay the foundation for long-term success. Not only does it attract more targeted traffic, but it also significantly improves conversion rates across the entire product portfolio. Customers are more likely to choose a brand they are familiar with, resulting in increased sales and sustained profitability.

Measuring Success: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): To gauge the effectiveness of brand awareness efforts, advertisers should monitor key performance indicators. Metrics such as brand-specific search volume, impression share, click-through rate (CTR), and overall sales provide valuable insights into the success of brand awareness campaigns. Analyzing these KPIs helps advertisers track progress, make data-driven decisions, and optimize their strategies for maximum impact.

Conclusion: For big advertisers with multiple products, brand awareness emerges as a paramount goal. By investing in brand recognition and establishing trust among customers, advertisers can increase conversion rates across their entire product portfolio. Brand awareness drives traffic, fosters loyalty, and ultimately leads to long-term profitability. Leveraging sponsored brands ad format and monitoring relevant KPIs allows advertisers to measure success and fine-tune their strategies.

17.Goals Metrics Overview - the actual numbers you need to aim and look out for

Achieving success in Amazon advertising requires clear goals and effective measurement of key performance indicators (KPIs). This blog post provides a comprehensive summary of the goals and KPIs that advertisers should focus on to maximize sales, increase ads efficiency, and enhance brand awareness. By understanding these objectives and tracking the right metrics, advertisers can optimize their campaigns and drive long-term profitability.

Goal 1: Maximizing Sales for New and Restocked Products: For new and restocked products, the primary objective is to maximize sales while aiming to break even in terms of profitability. Key KPIs for this goal include the number of sales and the accumulation of product reviews. Achieving a substantial number of reviews, preferably five or more, establishes a foundation for a healthy conversion rate. Additionally, ranking on page one for relevant keywords is crucial to increase visibility and attract potential customers. The Advertising Cost of Sales (ACOS) serves as a widely used KPI to track progress toward the break-even ACOS target.

Goal 2: Enhancing Ads Efficiency for Established Products: Once products have gained reviews and established rankings, the focus shifts to increasing ads efficiency and unit profitability. Advertisers aim to generate actual profit from their ads while mitigating risks. Alongside targeting a specific ACOS threshold for profitability, monitoring overspend—an exclusive KPI available in third-party software like Sellics—provides insights into campaign performance and helps gauge proximity to the target ACOS. Striving for higher ads efficiency requires strategic bidding and campaign optimization.

Goal 3: Maximizing Total Ads Profit for Established Products: The ultimate goal for established products is to maximize total ads profit, combining increased traffic with profitability. Advertisers need to set their target ACOS strategically to align with their profit goals. Tracking total profit is vital for evaluating campaign success; however, Seller Central's campaign manager does not provide profit as a KPI. Utilizing third-party software is recommended to accurately measure total profit and optimize campaign strategies.

Goal 4: Increasing Brand Awareness: Big advertisers and brands with multiple products should prioritize investing in long-term brand success. Brand awareness enhances recognition and trust among customers. KPIs for measuring brand awareness include impressions, which indicate the visibility of campaigns, and the "new to brand" metric offered by Amazon. The new to brand metric reveals the percentage of sales generated from customers who haven't purchased from the brand in the past year, providing insights into reaching new customers and expanding brand recognition.

Tracking Success and Utilizing KPIs: Amazon's advertising campaign manager offers basic KPIs such as ad spend, sales, ACOS, and impressions. However, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of campaign performance, third-party software is recommended for tracking long-term trends, assessing profitability, and measuring the success of specific KPIs. By using third-party tools, advertisers can access additional KPIs like overspend, which provides a monetary value to gauge campaign performance.

Conclusion: Setting clear goals and tracking the right KPIs are vital for achieving success in Amazon advertising. Maximizing sales, increasing ads efficiency, and enhancing brand awareness form the core objectives for advertisers. By focusing on these goals and utilizing appropriate KPIs, advertisers can optimize their campaigns, drive profitability, and establish a strong presence in the competitive Amazon marketplace. Leveraging third-party software for data analysis and long-term trend monitoring is highly recommended for comprehensive campaign management

18.ACOS - the main Amazon Advertising KPI explained. What is a good ACOS?

In the world of Amazon advertising, setting clear goals and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential for success. In this blog, we will delve into the concept of ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales) and its significance as a KPI in monitoring campaign performance. Understanding ACOS and its relationship with profitability is crucial for optimizing Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns effectively. So let's dive in!

Maximizing Sales and Reviews: When launching new or restocked products, the primary goal is to maximize sales. While profitability is important, sellers often aim to break even at the very least. Key KPIs to measure this goal include the number of sales and the number of reviews received, as reviews contribute to a higher conversion rate. Additionally, ranking on page one for relevant keywords is crucial for visibility and sales. The widely used ACOS KPI serves as an indicator of progress towards this goal.

Increasing Ads Efficiency: For established products with reviews, the focus shifts to increasing ads' efficiency and generating actual profit. Alongside profitability, a target ACOS is set to ensure the desired level of profitability is achieved. Another KPI, overspend, available in third-party software such as Sellics, helps measure ads' success by indicating the monetary value a campaign falls short of meeting the target ACOS.

Maximizing Total Ads Profit: Beyond increasing ads efficiency, the ultimate goal is to maximize the total ads profit. This goal combines efficient ad management with maximizing traffic and profitability. Tracking total profit as a KPI is crucial, and it often requires the use of third-party software since Seller Central's campaign manager does not provide profit as a KPI. Utilizing third-party software enables a comprehensive understanding of long-term trends and facilitates data-driven decision-making.

Increasing Brand Awareness: For larger companies or consultants working with brands, increasing brand awareness becomes a significant goal. This is particularly important for branded products and multiple products under the same brand. Measuring impressions from campaigns helps gauge the brand's visibility. Additionally, Amazon's "new-to-brand" metric, available for sponsored brands campaigns, indicates the percentage of sales from customers who have not purchased from the brand in the past year.

Understanding ACOS: ACOS, or Advertising Cost of Sales, is a crucial KPI that measures the efficiency and profitability of Amazon PPC campaigns. ACOS is calculated by dividing the ad spend by the revenue generated from ad clicks. The resulting percentage represents the share of revenue that goes towards advertising costs.

Determining a Target ACOS: The ideal ACOS depends on the product's profit margin. To break even, the ACOS should align with the break-even profit margin. However, if the goal is to achieve a positive margin after advertising costs, the target ACOS should be set lower than the break-even ACOS. By subtracting the desired profit margin from the break-even margin, one can determine the target ACOS.

Using Google Sheets for Analysis: To facilitate goal setting and calculation of target ACOS, a simple Google Sheet can be utilized. This sheet helps estimate profit margins, analyze product costs, and calculate the target ACOS based on desired profitability and monthly expenses.

Conclusion: Understanding and setting clear Amazon PPC targets is essential for running successful advertising campaigns. Monitoring KPIs, such as ACOS, allows sellers to evaluate campaign performance and make informed decisions. By considering profit margins, setting target ACOS values, and utilizing tools like third-party software, sellers can optimize their campaigns for maximum sales, efficiency, and profitability. With these insights and preparations, you are now ready to embark on your Amazon PPC journey!

19.Intro to your final campaign preparation - what to consider before starting ads

By now, you have gained a solid understanding of setting targets and the importance of ACOS as a key performance indicator. In this chapter, we will focus on three essential steps to ensure you start your advertising campaigns on the right track. These steps include conducting effective keyword research, structuring your campaigns optimally, and setting appropriate bids. Let's dive in!

Step 1: Mastering Keyword Research: Keyword research is a crucial aspect of Amazon PPC success. It involves identifying the most relevant and high-converting keywords for your product. By utilizing tools like Jungle Scout and other reliable plugins, you can gain insights into search volumes, competition, and keyword trends. Focus on keywords that align with your product and target audience, and consider long-tail keywords for more targeted and cost-effective advertising.

Step 2: Optimal Campaign Structure: To streamline your campaigns and make them more manageable, it's important to establish an optimal campaign structure. This involves organizing your campaigns into logical groups based on product categories, variations, or specific marketing goals. By structuring your campaigns effectively, you can easily track performance, allocate budgets, and make data-driven optimizations. Give your campaigns meaningful and searchable names to enhance visibility and ease of management within Amazon Seller Central.

Step 3: Setting Appropriate Bids: Determining the right bidding strategy is crucial for achieving optimal results in your Amazon PPC campaigns. For automatic ad groups, it's recommended to start with moderate bids to gather data and assess the performance of different keywords. As for manual keyword targeting, consider bidding more aggressively on high-converting keywords to maximize visibility and sales. However, it's important to monitor your ACOS and adjust bids accordingly to ensure profitability.

Conclusion: By following these three crucial steps of conducting effective keyword research, optimizing your campaign structure, and setting appropriate bids, you are well-prepared to launch your advertising campaigns on Amazon Seller Central. Remember to stay vigilant, monitor performance metrics regularly, and make data-driven adjustments to continuously optimize your campaigns. Best of luck, and may your Amazon PPC endeavours be successful and profitable

20.Keyword Research - How, where and which keywords? Going for the right audience

Keyword research plays a vital role in various aspects of Amazon, particularly for PPC advertising. While you may have already conducted some keyword research for content optimization, it's crucial to delve deeper into keyword research specifically for PPC campaigns. Manual keyword research is highly recommended to avoid unnecessary costs from automatic campaigns. In this blog post, we will explore effective methods and tools to conduct keyword research for your Amazon PPC endeavors.

1.Brainstorming and Synonym Tools: Start by brainstorming relevant keywords and phrases related to your product. Engage with friends, ask for opinions, and consider common use cases. Additionally, utilize thesaurus tools and other synonym finders to identify alternative terms that accurately describe your product. This step helps expand your keyword pool and generate ideas.
2.Amazon's Auto Suggestions: Amazon's auto suggestions are a valuable resource for identifying popular and relevant search terms. Simply enter your main keywords into the search bar and observe the suggested search terms provided by Amazon. These suggestions indicate high-traffic keywords that customers frequently use. Focus on long-tail keywords as they tend to be more specific and relevant to your product.
3.Competitor Product Analysis: Analyzing competitor products can provide valuable insights into effective keyword usage. Examine how competitors describe their product advantages and the keywords they incorporate. Additionally, explore the ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers) of relevant competitor products. These ASINs can be used for targeted advertising and help you appear alongside competing products in sponsored listings.
4. Keyword Research Tools: Various keyword research tools are available to assist you in uncovering additional relevant keywords. Avoid wasting resources on less relevant terms and focus on highly relevant keywords with potential for driving conversions. We use search term report from brand analytics on amazon

Conclusion: Conducting thorough keyword research is a crucial step in preparing for successful Amazon PPC campaigns. By leveraging brainstorming sessions, synonym tools, Amazon's auto suggestions, competitor analysis, and keyword research tools, you can build a comprehensive list of relevant keywords and ASINs. These insights will serve as the foundation for your manual campaigns and allow you to target high-converting keywords effectively.

21.Optimal Campaign Structure - the secret to running successful ads

Welcome to a critical topic - the structure of your Amazon advertising campaigns. Getting the structure right is essential for achieving successful results. In this blog post, we will explore the key components of a well-structured campaign and how they contribute to your advertising success on Amazon.

Campaign Structure for Keyword Targeting: Let's begin with the structure for a single product when utilizing keyword targeting. The structure consists of three main campaign types: automatic, broad, and phrase.

1. Automatic Campaign: Start with a single automatic campaign focused on keyword discovery. This campaign allows Amazon to display your sponsored product for various search terms. Monitor the search terms that generate clicks and, most importantly, orders. These are potentially relevant search terms worth exploring further.
2. Manual Broad Campaign: Once you identify relevant search terms through the automatic campaign, transfer them to a manual broad campaign. The goal here is to uncover additional related search terms based on the relevant ones you discovered previously. For example, if "dog house garden" proves to be a relevant search term that generated an order, add it to the manual broad campaign to find more similar search terms containing "dog house garden."
3. Manual Phrase Campaign: Similarly, transfer the search terms that received orders to a manual phrase campaign. In this campaign, you test the search terms further to ensure their relevance. Verify that the search terms consistently generate orders and align with your product. If a search term has received at least two orders, it is considered highly relevant.
4. Manual Exact Campaign (Keyword Cashcows): Finally, move the highly relevant search terms from the manual phrase campaign to a manual exact campaign. These are your "keyword cashcows." In the manual exact campaign, you only target highly relevant keywords, allowing you to increase your budget without compromising efficiency. Allocate most of your budget to these campaigns to maximize order volume and revenue.

The Role of Negative Phrase Match: To maintain efficiency and avoid duplicate traffic, employ negative phrase match in your campaigns. When transferring search terms from one campaign to another, add them as negative phrase match in the previous campaign. This prevents the automatic campaign from continuing to drive traffic for those specific search terms, as the manual campaigns are typically more efficient and targeted.

Campaign Structure for Product Targeting: The structure for product targeting follows a similar pattern to keyword targeting. It involves automatic, manual product, and category campaigns.

1. Automatic Campaign: Initiate an automatic campaign for both keyword and ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) discovery. This campaign helps identify ASINs that generate sales.
2. Manual Product Campaign: After identifying ASINs that generate sales in the automatic campaign, transfer them to a manual product campaign. This serves as a testing ground to confirm the relevance and effectiveness of those ASINs for your product.
3. Category Campaign: Create a category campaign to display your sponsored product on listing pages of products in a specific category or price range. Monitor the ASINs that generate sales in both the manual product campaign and the category campaign.
4. Manual Product Cash Cow Campaign: Once an ASIN receives two or more orders in either the manual product or category campaign, move it to a manual product cash cow campaign. In this campaign, allocate a significant budget without limits, as these ASINs have proven to be highly relevant and successful for your product.

Importance of Negative ASINs: While negative ASINs do not currently work in automatic campaigns, it is recommended to add them as negative ASINs to anticipate any future changes. This ensures that traffic is solely driven by your manual product targeting campaigns.

Conclusion: By following the suggested campaign structure, you are on the path to achieving successful Amazon advertising.

22.Structure Philosophies - using negative targets to direct traffic - good or bad?

Properly structuring and naming your Amazon advertising campaigns is crucial for maximizing their effectiveness and saving time in campaign management. In this blog post, we'll dive into the key elements of campaign structure and provide a clear naming system that will help you maintain oversight and achieve successful results.

Campaign Structure for Keyword Targeting: To ensure success in Amazon advertising, it's important to establish the right campaign structure. Let's start with the structure for a single product when using keyword targeting.

1. Automatic Campaign (Keyword Discovery): Begin with a single automatic campaign to allow Amazon to display your sponsored product for various search terms. Analyze the search terms that generate clicks and orders, identifying the ones that are relevant. These relevant search terms will be moved to the manual phrase and broad campaigns.
2. Manual Broad Campaign (Keyword Discovery): Create a manual broad campaign to discover more relevant search terms based on the already relevant search terms from the automatic campaign. Test these search terms to ensure their relevance and effectiveness in driving orders.
3. Manual Phrase Campaign (Keyword Testing): In the manual phrase campaign, include the search terms that have generated orders in the previous campaigns. Test these search terms further to confirm their relevance. Move search terms that prove to be successful to the next phase.
4. Manual Exact Campaign (Keyword Cash Cows): Move highly relevant search terms from the manual phrase campaign to the manual exact campaign. These search terms have demonstrated their ability to generate orders consistently. Allocate a significant portion of your budget to these campaigns to maximize their performance.

Campaign Structure for Product Targeting: The structure for product targeting campaigns is similar to keyword targeting campaigns.

1. Automatic Campaign (ASIN and Keyword Discovery): Begin with an automatic campaign to discover relevant ASINs and keywords. Identify the ASINs that generate sales and move them to the manual product campaign.
2. Manual Product Campaign (ASIN Testing): In the manual product campaign, test the ASINs that have generated sales in the automatic campaign. Ensure their relevance and effectiveness in driving orders. Move successful ASINs to the next phase.
3. Category Campaign (ASIN Discovery): Create a category campaign to display your sponsored product on listing pages within a specific category or price range. Identify the ASINs that generate sales in these campaigns and move them to the ASIN cash cow campaigns.
4. ASIN Cash Cow Campaigns: Allocate a higher budget to the ASIN cash cow campaigns, which include highly relevant ASINs. These campaigns have demonstrated their ability to generate consistent orders. Maximize the budget for these campaigns to maximize results.

The Importance of Campaign Naming: Properly naming your campaigns is essential for maintaining clarity and efficient campaign management. Here's a recommended campaign naming system:

1. Product Name: Begin the campaign name with your product name.
2. Ad Output Type: Include "SP" (sponsored products) to indicate the ad output type.
3. Control Type: Use "M" for automatic and "A" for manual campaigns.
4. Match Type (For Manual Campaigns): Add "B" for broad, "E" for exact, or "P" for phrase match.
5. Campaign Goal: Mention the campaign goal, such as keyword research or ASIN testing.
6. Target ACOS: Include the target ACOS to easily assess campaign performance.
7. Maximum Target Bid: Mention the maximum bid you can afford to meet the target ACOS.
8. Start Date: Include the start date of the campaign for easy reference.

Conclusion: Effectively structuring and naming your Amazon advertising campaigns is crucial for success. By following the recommended campaign structures and using a clear naming system, you can maintain oversight, save time, and achieve optimal results

23.Optimal Campaign Naming - how to make things a lot easier for your future self

Naming your Amazon advertising campaigns properly is crucial for maintaining oversight and efficiency in campaign management. In this blog post, we'll explore the importance of campaign naming and provide a comprehensive system that will help you save time and stay organized. Let's dive in!

The Power of Effective Campaign Naming: As your campaigns grow in number and complexity, a good naming system becomes essential. By adopting a structured naming approach, you can quickly assess campaign performance, identify their goals, and make informed decisions without delving into each campaign individually. It's a time-saving strategy that sets you up for success.

Key Elements of a Campaign Name: To create effective campaign names, consider incorporating the following elements:

1. Product Name: Begin the campaign name with the name of the featured product. For example, "Dog House."
2. Ad Output Type: Include "SP" (sponsored products) to indicate the ad output type for most of your campaigns.
3. Control Type: Use "M" for automatic campaigns and "A" for manual campaigns.
4. Match Type (For Manual Campaigns): If you have manual campaigns, include "B" for broad, "E" for exact, or "P" for phrase match.
5. Campaign Goal: Specify the goal of the campaign. For example, for a broad campaign, it could be "Keyword Research." This helps you remember the primary focus of the campaign.
6. Target ACOS: Include the target ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sale) in the campaign name. This allows for quick assessment of campaign performance and helps determine if further action is needed.
7. Maximum Target Bid: Mention the maximum bid that aligns with your target ACOS. This serves as a reference point for bid optimization.
8. Start Date: Add the campaign's start date to easily track its duration and assess its performance over time.

The Benefits of Including Target ACOS and Start Date: By incorporating the target ACOS and start date in your campaign names, you gain several advantages:

Quick Assessment: Instantly determine if the campaign is meeting the desired ACOS or requires adjustment.
Budget Optimization: Easily identify the maximum bid you can allocate to achieve the target ACOS.
Efficient Timeframe Analysis: By knowing the campaign's start date, you can avoid unnecessary adjustments to the timeframe picker and focus on relevant data.

Conclusion: Properly naming your Amazon advertising campaigns is crucial for effective campaign management. By following the suggested naming system, incorporating key elements such as product name, ad output type, control type, match type, campaign goal, target ACOS, maximum target bid, and start date, you can maintain oversight and make informed decisions without excessive analysis.

25. Optimal Starting Bids - the foundation of profitable ads

It's crucial to set your starting bids accurately. While you may not have an abundance of data initially, getting the bidding strategy right from the start can help you avoid overspending and maximize your results. We'll explore two main methods for setting starting bids and provide guidance to ensure you make informed decisions. Let's dive in!

Method 1: Crawl Up Method The crawl up method is a safe and conservative approach to setting starting bids. Here's how it works:

1. Begin with Low Bids: Set a low bid for all target keywords.
2. Monitor Traffic: Check if you're receiving impressions and traffic for each keyword.
3. Gradually Increase Bids: For keywords that are not generating traffic, slowly increase the bids until you start receiving impressions.
4. Maintain Successful Bids: If a keyword is already driving traffic at a low bid, there's no need to increase it further.

This method ensures you don't overspend while allowing you to gradually optimize your bids based on real-time performance.

Method 2: Calculated Method For those seeking quicker results, the calculated method helps determine an initial bid based on your product's price and conversion rate. Follow these steps:

1. Calculate Average Revenue per Click: Multiply your product's price by its conversion rate. This gives you the average revenue generated per click.
2. Determine Target CPC: Multiply the average revenue per click by your target ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sale). This provides the target cost per click that aligns with your desired ACOS.
3. Adjust for Lower CPC: Remember that your actual CPC will likely be lower than your bid. As a rule of thumb, assume your CPC will be approximately 25% lower than the bid.
4. Set Starting Bid: Start with a bid slightly higher than the target CPC to ensure you receive traffic from the beginning.

Note: The calculated method carries more risk and may lead to higher costs. However, it can also help you achieve faster rankings and potentially increase overall profit.

Differentiated Bidding for Campaign Types: To optimize your bidding strategy further, consider adjusting your bids based on the campaign type:

1. Exact Keyword Campaigns: For campaigns targeting specific, relevant keywords, be more aggressive with your bids. Start with the calculated bid as your initial bid for exact match keywords.
2. Phrase Testing Campaigns: Reduce your bid to approximately two-thirds of the calculated bid for phrase match keywords.
3. Broad Discovery Campaigns: Set your bid at around half of the calculated bid for broad match keywords.
4. Automatic Discovery Campaigns: Avoid bidding significantly higher than 40 cents for automatic campaigns, as the traffic may not be as relevant or predictable.

Amazon's Suggested Bids: When manually entering keywords in your campaign, Amazon may suggest bid amounts based on what other advertisers have used. However, these suggestions are not tailored to your specific goals or product margins. Use them as a reference but exercise caution, as they often lead to unnecessarily high costs. The crawl up method generally proves effective, and bids below the suggested amounts can still generate traffic and conversions.

Conclusion: By understanding the crawl up method and the calculated method, you can confidently set starting bids for your Amazon advertising campaigns. Assess your risk tolerance, consider the different campaign types, and always prioritize your ACOS goals and conversion rates. Remember that bidding strategies will evolve as you gather more data, enabling you to make data-driven bid adjustments.

26.Starting your first campaign - bringing it all together

To begin, navigate to Seller Central and go to the advertising campaign manager. Click on "Create Campaign." The first step is to choose your campaign type. You have three options: Sponsored Products in search results, Sponsored Brands at the top of search results, and Sponsored Display ads for retargeting customers on and off Amazon. For now, we'll focus on creating a sponsored products campaign.

Start by naming your campaign. I recommend using the product name followed by "Sponsored Products." Select the manual campaign type and choose exact keywords. Remember, the purpose of this campaign is to generate substantial sales, so set an unlimited budget without fear. Target an ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sale) of 40%, which we calculated earlier. Set the target bid at 63 cents.

Specify the campaign start date, which in this case is April 2020. Since there's no need to stop your ads unless you're running out of stock, leave the end date blank. For the daily budget, allocate $30 for this cash cow campaign.

As a pro tip, when starting with a new product that lacks reviews, begin with a single exact match campaign. This ensures you're targeting highly relevant search terms. Only after obtaining a few reviews should you expand your campaign structure.

Next, choose the manual targeting option. Further down, you'll find the bidding strategy. Since this is a new product, select the "Fixed" option to compel Amazon to consider your full bids and give your campaign impressions. However, for established products, "Down Only" is the safer option.

Each campaign must have at least one ad group. Select an ad group name that corresponds to your campaign. Make sure it's identifiable for future reference. Choose the product you want to promote and opt for keyword targeting.

Enter the list of researched keywords, focusing only on super relevant ones. Exclude broad and phrase match keywords for this campaign. Set the bids for each keyword. Remember, the target bid is 63 cents.

Amazon may suggest higher bids for certain keywords to generate more traffic. You can choose to apply all suggested bids or be selective. Additionally, you have the option to add negative keywords, but for an exact keywords campaign, it's unnecessary since you'll only target the exact keywords you provided.

Once you've completed all the necessary details, you can launch your campaign. Consider using a keyword ranking tracking tool to monitor your keyword rankings and strive for first-page visibility.

Congratulations! You have prepared and launched your Amazon advertising campaign.

27.Staying patient, but for how long? How much time do Keywords deserve?

Before diving into optimization techniques, let's address the importance of giving your campaigns and keywords sufficient time to prove themselves. Patience is a virtue in PPC, and understanding the concept of sales attribution and conversion rates will help you make informed decisions. So, let's get started!

1. The Power of Patience: Many advertisers make the mistake of analyzing campaign data too soon. Two key reasons to give your keywords time to perform are: a. Sales Attribution: Not all orders occur immediately after a click. Customers may add products to their wishlist or cart and make a purchase later. Allow time for sales to be attributed to the respective clicks. b. Conversion Rates: Consider your product's conversion rates. On average, non-luxury products have a 5% conversion rate. Give keywords sufficient clicks before making changes. For example, if the conversion rate is 5%, wait for 30-40 clicks before considering adjustments.
2. The Foundation: Impressions: Impressions are crucial for generating clicks and orders. If you're not receiving any impressions, take the following steps: a. Evaluate Your Keywords: Ensure your keywords are relevant and aligned with customer search intent. Refine or expand your keyword list if necessary. b. Optimize Your Product Listing: Improve your product's visibility by enhancing its title, bullet points, description, and backend keywords. Use relevant and highly searched terms. c. Adjust Bids and Budget: Review your bidding strategy and increase your bids to compete for impressions. Consider raising your daily budget to allow for increased exposure. d. Monitor Competitors: Keep an eye on your competitors' strategies. Analyze their keywords, bids, and ad placements to identify opportunities for improvement.

Conclusion: As you venture into Amazon PPC, remember that patience is essential. Sales attribution and conversion rates require time to yield accurate results. Don't rush into making changes based on early data. Instead, focus on understanding your product's performance and aligning it with customer behavior.

28.Low Click-Through-Rate (CTR) - how to get people clicking on your product

We'll explore what you can do if your campaigns or targets are experiencing low impression rates. So let's jump right in!

Understanding Impressions: Before we discuss solutions, let's quickly understand where you can find impressions in the Seller Central campaign manager. Impressions, among other KPIs, can be found for each campaign in the campaign manager section. If it's not already listed, you can easily add the impressions column to your view.

Addressing Zero Impressions: If you notice that your campaigns have zero impressions, the first two factors to check are the product's subcategory and the availability of the buy box. Ensure that your product is categorized in the most relevant subcategory, aligned with similar products in the market. Additionally, confirm that you have the buy box, as running ads requires its presence. Check for any buy box loss due to reasons such as competition or performance issues.

Increasing Impressions:

1. Sufficient Budget: If you consistently reach your budget limits, it's a clear indicator that your budget is too low. Increasing the budget allows for more impressions across your targets.
2. Keyword Research: Consider researching more keywords. If you find that your current keywords have low traffic potential, expand your research and target additional relevant keywords. Aim for around 50 to 100 keywords per campaign to optimize impressions effectively.
3. Avoid Keyword Dumping: Dumping a large number of keywords into a single campaign is not recommended. It can hinder impressions, as some high-traffic keywords may consume most of the ad spend, making it challenging for other keywords to gain traction. If you have an extensive list of relevant keywords (200-300+), consider creating a separate campaign to target them efficiently.
4. Campaign Optimization: Ensure you haven't over-optimized your campaign. Sometimes, excessive negative search terms or extremely low bids can hinder impressions. Reevaluate and adjust your campaign settings accordingly to allow for better impressions.
5. Dynamic Bidding: For new and untrusted campaigns, exercise patience. It typically takes 2-4 weeks to gain impressions. Consider utilizing Fixed Bidding to expedite the process and gain initial impressions sooner.

Target-Specific Solutions:

1. Increase Bids: If a specific target is not receiving impressions, consider increasing the bid. A higher bid can help compete in a competitive keyword space and boost impressions.
2. All Match Types Approach: Embrace the "All match types" philosophy. If your exact targets have low impressions, try targeting the specific keyword using broad and phrase match types. This approach allows you to assess if the keyword receives traffic through alternative match types, such as broad or phrase.
3. Analyze Automatic Campaigns: Check if the search term in question is receiving traffic in your automatic campaign or other broad/phrase campaigns. If it's performing well elsewhere, consider adding it as a negative search term in the automatic campaign to drive traffic to the manual keyword.

Conclusion: Impressions are the starting point for generating clicks and conversions in Amazon PPC campaigns. By following the strategies outlined in this blog post, you can address low impression rates effectively. Remember to optimize your campaigns, conduct thorough keyword research, and monitor your budget to maximize impressions.

29.Low Impressions - how to get your product seen

In the world of Amazon advertising, understanding key performance indicators (KPIs) is crucial to running successful campaigns. In this blog post, we will focus on the second major KPI: the click-through rate (CTR). We will explore what constitutes a good CTR, factors influencing it, and actionable steps to optimize it for your Amazon ads.

Understanding Click-Through Rate: The click-through rate is the ratio of clicks to impressions, and it measures how often customers click on your ads after seeing them. As a general rule, a CTR of 0.5% to 2% is considered desirable, depending on the type of campaign.

Improving Click-Through Rate:

1. Enhance Your Product Listing: Start by evaluating the main CTR levers on your product listing. Pay attention to the main image, as it plays a significant role in catching customers' attention. Consider investing in professional photography to make your product stand out.
2. Optimize Your Title: Craft a compelling title that not only describes your product but also highlights its unique selling points. Incorporate persuasive language to demonstrate why your product stands above the competition.
3. Price Competitively: While price is not the sole determining factor, ensure your product's price falls within the average range of your niche. Being excessively expensive or overly cheap can adversely affect your CTR.
4. Manage Reviews: Monitor and respond promptly to customer reviews. Address any negative feedback to show your commitment to customer satisfaction. Implement strategies to generate more reviews legally, as positive ratings and review volume greatly impact CTR.
5. Placement Bidding: Analyze the performance of different ad placements, such as top of search, product pages, and the rest of the search results. Consider increasing your bid to secure higher ad placements, which typically yield better CTR. Gradually adjust your bid to find the optimal position.
6. Target and Search Term Relevancy: If a specific target or search term exhibits a low CTR, evaluate its relevancy. Adjust bids accordingly to improve ad rank position. For irrelevant search terms, use negative targeting to prevent your ads from appearing in unrelated searches.

Conclusion: By focusing on improving your click-through rate, you can enhance the effectiveness of your Amazon advertising campaigns. Optimize your product listing, fine-tune your bids and placements, and ensure relevance to maximize your CTR. In the next blog post, we will discuss the next crucial KPI: the conversion rate, which is key to driving sales on your Amazon listings. Stay tuned for more valuable insights!

30.Low Conversion Rate (CR) - how to increase your product's sale

Conversion rate is a crucial key performance indicator (KPI) in Amazon advertising, measuring the number of orders divided by the number of clicks. A high conversion rate is essential for maximizing sales and profitability. In this article, we will explore effective strategies to ensure a strong conversion rate for your Amazon product listings.

1. Importance of Conversion Rate: Increasing your conversion rate is more cost-effective and offers long-term benefits compared to constantly driving more traffic. Aim for an average conversion rate of around 5%, although this can vary based on your niche and product type.
2. Enhancing Campaign-Level Conversion: a. Compelling Images: Images play a significant role in attracting customers and conveying product details. Use high-quality images that showcase your product from different angles, providing an immersive experience. b. Persuasive Bullet Points: Craft concise and persuasive bullet points highlighting the product's unique selling points and benefits. Place key arguments upfront to capture customers' attention quickly. c. Engaging Product Description: Pay attention to the product description, as it is crucial for mobile shoppers. Utilize the available space to provide additional information, build a brand connection, and evoke emotions.
3. Optimizing Conversion on Target Level: a. Relevancy: If a keyword or search term is relevant but not converting well, be patient and allow sufficient time for sales to come in. Avoid increasing bids as it won't yield immediate results. b. Irrelevancy: If specific search terms are consistently irrelevant, negative match them to prevent wasted ad spend.
4. Consider Price and Reviews: Monitor and adjust your price competitively to remain within the niche's average. Reviews also significantly impact conversion rates, so actively manage and respond to customer feedback to build trust.

Conclusion: Investing time and effort into optimizing your conversion rate is essential for long-term success on Amazon. Focus on captivating images, persuasive bullet points, and engaging product descriptions. Ensure relevancy in your targeting and continually monitor and adjust your price and reviews. By mastering conversion rate optimization, you can maximize sales and achieve your advertising goals on Amazon.

31.High & Low ACOS - good CTR & CR, but you're still not profitable? How to react

We will discuss strategies for reacting to low or high ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sale) in your Amazon PPC campaigns. While you may already be familiar with some of these actions, it's essential to review them to ensure optimal campaign performance. Let's delve into the steps you can take to address ACOS-related challenges and maximize your campaign's efficiency.

Reacting to High ACOS: When your ACOS exceeds your target ACOS or when you encounter zero sales, it's crucial to implement corrective measures. Remember that ACOS cannot be calculated without revenue, so it's important to analyze campaigns not solely based on ACOS but also on sales performance. Here's what you can do at the product/campaign level:

1. Adjust Bids and Focus on Exact Keywords: By concentrating on exact keywords, you gain precise control over where your sponsored products appear. Consider lowering bids for non-performing or inefficient keywords to reduce PPC costs and improve overall efficiency.
2. Experiment with Dynamic Bidding and Placement Multipliers: These tools can significantly impact the placement of your sponsored products in search results. Test different bidding strategies and placement multipliers to optimize your campaign's visibility and target relevant search terms.
3. Decrease Campaign Budget: If other adjustments fail to yield improvements, reducing the budget for underperforming campaigns can help prevent excessive costs. It ensures that the expenses remain manageable while you seek alternative solutions.

On a specific target or search term level, consider the following actions:

1. Reduce Bids for Inefficient Targets: If a specific target consistently generates poor ACOS, despite reasonable conversion rates, it might be due to high competition. Lowering the bid for that target can make it more cost-effective.
2. Analyze Sub Target Bids for Automatic Campaigns: For automatic campaigns utilizing sub targets, such as substitutes and complementary targets, examine which ones are producing traffic. Lower the bids for less relevant sub targets to prioritize more relevant traffic and avoid missing out on potential sales.
3. Increasing Bids for Automatic Ad Groups: Occasionally, increasing bids slightly in automatic ad groups can result in more traffic from relevant search terms. This approach might incur higher costs but can lead to increased sales and overall efficiency. However, it's important to consider bid adjustments cautiously, as determining the optimal bid can be complex.

Don't forget to set irrelevant search terms to negative if they consistently generate no sales or prove inefficient for your campaigns.

Reacting to Low ACOS: When your ACOS is significantly below the target ACOS, take advantage of the favorable performance and consider the following actions:

1. Increase Budget for Successful Campaigns: Especially for your high-performing campaigns, allocating more budget can help maximize their potential. Since each keyword match type tends to perform differently, organizing campaigns based on match types allows you to focus budget increases on the most productive keywords.
2. Utilize Dynamic Bidding and Placement Multipliers: Continuing to experiment with these features can further enhance the effectiveness of successful campaigns. Adjusting bidding strategies and placement multipliers can result in increased traffic and sales.
3. Increase Bids for Top-Performing Targets: If a keyword or search term is generating exceptional results, raising the bid can amplify its impact. This strategy can generate more traffic, improve organic rankings, and ultimately increase total profits.

Conclusion: As you wrap up this course, it's evident that you have acquired valuable knowledge about Amazon PPC campaigns. Reacting to high or low ACOS is crucial for maintaining campaign performance and optimizing profitability. By adjusting bids, leveraging dynamic bidding and placement multipliers, monitoring sub target bids, and modifying budgets, you can navigate ACOS fluctuations and make informed decisions to maximize campaign efficiency

32.Thoughts, Recommendations & Predictions

In this final section, we'd like to highlight four important points that deserve mention as we conclude this course.

1. Be Big: Don't Hold Back When it comes to running campaigns on Amazon, size matters—specifically, the data and budgets of your campaigns. Many sellers tend to be overly cautious and defensive, resulting in campaigns with insufficient data. It's crucial to understand that optimizing a campaign with minimal data is near impossible. To truly succeed, be brave and allocate a slightly larger budget. If you have a great product, optimize your listing, and target your relevant audience, you'll increase your chances of success.
2. Be Realistic: View PPC as Marketing and Market Research Rather than considering PPC as an easy path to quick profits, it's important to recognize it as a marketing strategy and a source of valuable market data. Even if your campaigns don't generate immediate sales, you gain valuable information, such as click-through rates. By analyzing this data, you can prioritize search terms and optimize your listing accordingly. Remember, at the start of a new product launch, without reviews, the conversion rate might be low. However, with perseverance, your conversions will improve.
3. Be Classy: Invest in Quality Investing in quality is key, not only for your product but also for your listing page. When you've invested thousands of dollars in developing a product, it's essential to create a listing page that reflects that investment. Put in the extra effort to optimize your listing, aiming for a high conversion rate. A well-optimized listing will yield long-term benefits. Additionally, I'm currently working on an Amazon SEO course, so feel free to share your preference between that and the Advanced Advertising course.
4. Be Persistent: Stick with It Starting out can be challenging, especially without reviews and when PPC seems like a drain on your finances. Remember that most sellers experience this initial struggle. Persistence is key. Stick with your PPC campaigns, be patient, and give your keywords the time they deserve. Sales and reviews will come, and your ads will become more efficient. Looking ahead, the future of Amazon PPC holds even greater potential, with sponsored products likely occupying a significant portion of search results. Therefore, being persistent in mastering PPC is essential for survival on Amazon.

Happy selling! Reach out to us to optimise your campaigns

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